Original Arabic Wording
Did you know that the original Arabic wording of “from the river to the sea” is “from Mia to Mia,” meaning “from water to water Palestine will be Arabia, Palestine will be Arab”?
Clarifying the Geography
First of all, I’ve been told that you need to specify which river and which sea. We are talking about the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
The Origins of “Palestine Will Be Free”
So, where does “Palestine will be free” come from? In 1964, when the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was established, it didn’t ask to liberate Palestine from the river to the sea. In 1964, the West Bank was part of Jordan, which had conquered and annexed it, and the Gaza Strip was under Egyptian military occupation. The Arabs of the land did not seek to liberate Palestine from Jordan or from Egypt; they only sought to liberate Palestine from Jewish sovereignty.
PLO Maps and Jewish Sovereignty
It’s very difficult to find those maps today, but if you find the maps of the PLO between 1964 and 1967, they only include the land of Israel, the state of Israel, in its pre-1967 lines. So, “Palestine will be free” always meant it would be free of Jewish sovereignty.
The Name “Palestine” and Arab Identity
But how did the word “Palestine” come to be associated with Arabs? Once the Jews took their precolonial name Israel and renamed their sovereign state Israel, the name Palestine was suddenly left hanging, belonging to no one because it was the colonial, foreign name. The Arabs of the land, persisting in their war against Jewish sovereignty, as British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin correctly noted in February 1947, never battled for an Arab state. The conflict was irreconcilable because the Jews of the land wanted to establish a Jewish state based on the principle of self-determination for their people, while the Arabs of the land wanted to resist to the last the establishment of a Jewish state in any part of the land.
The Emergence of the Palestinian Identity
Once Israel was established, despite the Arabs’ best and very violent efforts, the Arabs of the land needed a name. They took the name Palestine, the colonial Roman European name, and basically claimed it for themselves, calling themselves Palestinians. They hijacked the name, inverted its meaning, and used it to claim exclusive control and possession, presenting the Jews as if they were the foreign interlopers. This began the idea of Palestine being free from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea of Jewish sovereignty.
The Vision of a Democratic State
Sometimes we are told that this is a benign idea, despite the original Arab claim that “from water to water, Palestine will be Arab.” We are told that this is merely a vision of an open, equal, democratic state where Jews and Arabs will live as equals in peace and harmony. So, we are asked to believe that the Jewish people need to forgo their hard-won sovereignty, which they envisioned, dreamed, built, invested in, fought for, and sacrificed for, to achieve the dream of a neutral state of Arabs and Jews where all will be equal.
Historical Realities and Skepticism
Jews are asked to believe that in this place will be established the first-ever Arab democracy in the region that will treat Jews as equals, both individually and collectively—a thing that has never happened. The Arab world is known for actually ethnically cleansing its Jews as soon as there was a danger that Jews might begin to conceive of themselves as equals individually and collectively. We are told that the Jews are a people of faith, but somehow, I believe that believing in that unicorn is a bit too much.